Using REFLECT rubric for assessing the reflective use of e-portfolios, a qualitative pilot study at Alexandria Faculty of Medicine

Background
Reflective practice, essential to the development of critical thinking and professionalism in medical education, is increasingly facilitated by portfolios in both undergraduate and postgraduate contexts., With the aim of enhancing the reflective skills of undergraduate medical students, an e-portfolio was piloted and evaluated at the Alexandria Faculty of Medicine.

Methods

After attending the two-week elective course "Steps towards accreditation of medical schools", 5th and 6th year medical students submitted their e-portfolios containing reflections on their role in quality management and accreditation, their strengths, and weaknesses in soft skills in the academic years 2021/2022 and 2022/2023.
This qualitative study was conducted to evaluate the piloting of the e- portfolio by analysing students' reflective comments using the Reflection Evaluation For Learner’s Enhanced Competencies (REFLECT) rubric using the qualitative software data analysis program ATLAS.ti.

Results
A total number of 177 final year medical students participated in the elective course and submitted their e-portfolios as a requirement to pass the course. Analysis has showed that most of the reflective comments remained in the two lower levels of the REFLECT rubric, most of the comments were superficial, descriptive, non-reflective (factual reporting) rather than reflective, critical, or introspective.

Conclusions
E-portfolios provide a structured and adaptable platform that facilitates reflective thinking, an important metacognitive skill in medical education. In order to make undergraduate medical students reflective, more emphasis should be placed on training them in reflective writing. Our findings suggest that the integration of the REFLECT rubric can provide a comprehensive framework for assessing e portfolios.